MOSCOW, August 17. /TASS/. There is no consensus of opinion among experts about reliability of safety and efficiency tests of Russia’s newly-registered anti-coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V.
Thus, Tatiana Kusaiko, a deputy chairperson of the social policy committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house and holder of the title of Russia’s Honored Doctor, told a news conference on Monday the vaccine trials that had already been done were quite enough. "Sputnik V is based on a well-known platform, so the five months of research are enough for its use," she said. "We should trust our researchers who have a 20-year experience of work and such research. We see how effective the anti-Ebola vaccine (based on the same platform as Sputnik V - TASS) is."
"Franky speaking, I would have got inoculated if I had such a possibility," she stressed.
Meanwhile, Svetlana Zavidova, executive director of the Association of Organizations for Clinical Tests, said she doubted that the existing tests were enough for the vaccine’s mass use. "Regrettably, the history of vaccine development knows episodes, quite high-profile ones, when a poorly-tested vaccine was used to cause serious immunobiological reactions provoking a disease," she said. "I hope it is not the case with this vaccine. But it is a factor of danger. There is a factor of efficiency, which was not seriously studied for this vaccine. It is impossible to prove the vaccine efficiency on 38 patients in principle."
Meduza, a Russian-language internet news outlet, said on August 10 that the Association had called on the Russian health ministry to postpone the registration of the vaccine developed by the Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, now known as Sputnik V. However, the vaccine was registered on August 11 to be the world’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection. Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that criticism about the vaccine stemmed from tough competition on the pharmaceutical market.